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2011 BRENDA MAY GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

Tanmaya Bingham

- Countermanding Saturation, 2011

22 November to 24 December

In an over stimulated world peace and quiet is a rare commodity. We have been forced to create internal conduits to another restorative world or void where the pressure on our senses is alleviated and we can retreat, relax and process.

Stripping away stimulus, as if within a sensory deprivation chamber, this void is unconfined by any boundaries, leaving us to float freely, tethered only to our simultaneous experience of the everyday world. Tapping into this vastness allows us to operate at our optimum by balancing the drenching of our senses with the comfort of an infinite absence.

Waratah Lahy

- Not What it Seems, 2011

22 November to 24 December

Things are not always what they seem to be. Through simple quirks of colour and composition, everyday scenes of people and places reveal themselves as dreamlike memories, not quite recognisable but familiar enough that they hover on the edge of being a remembered place and something dredged up from the imagination. Glowing colours saturate the images, distorting a sense of time and place, enticing and beguiling the viewer into a place that they recognise and remember as their own.

These new paintings continue to explore my ongoing fascination with the simplicity of the overlooked: people, places, light and colour. I find inspiration in everyday scenes that are often lost in the deluge of contemporary visual culture.

Marc Standing

- Waking Me Forever, 2011

25 October to 19 November

There is an ethereal and dreamlike quality to this body of work with many references to the natural world and to our biological makeup. Sleep, dream and wakefulness collide in a realm of fragmented imagination. The here and now is but transient. Plants, masquerade masks, anatomical matter, and cell like structures, hover and drift within these dreamscapes, while the birds reference the gateway keepers between the sacred and the earthly realms.

At the same time, an uncomfortable uneasiness of other worldliness pervades the paintings perhaps offering an indication of the dreams that follow after the passing of our mortality.

Senden Blackwood

- ishi, 2011

25 October to 19 November

I guess there could be far worse things to be consumed by than carving abstract forms in stone. For me, the attraction and the meaning is in the transformation, from dirty rock to smooth sculpture. While the lines and planes gradually shift and settle, a part of me follows the process with a detached curiosity. Often I lose myself in a cloud of dust, following the sequence of reduction, only to be awakened hours later by an exhausted body and a hungry belly.

Somehow the whole process, however painful, is satisfying enough for me to want to do it over and over again, chasing new and different forms.

Body Language

- a curated group exhibition, 2011

27 September to 22 October

Through gestures, posture and facial expression we communicate without words to the world around us.

Body language is universal, as it crosses cultures and languages and does not belong to any conventional code of communication. We tend to express ourselves subconsciously, giving insight into unspoken emotions, thoughts, ideas and truths. Tattoos are an example of a distinct type of illustrative body language. Traditionally used as decoration for spiritual purposes, the body becomes a marked canvas conveying a vast array of meanings to the viewer without a sound.

Janet Parker-Smith

- Still Alive & Still Well, 2011

30 August to 24 September

This work introduces images, objects, creatures and species that hover between multiple identities. They are open for the viewer to question if the piece they are looking at belongs or is intrusive. They serve as a vessel for a form of displacement.

This work acts as a metaphor for the binary nature of insiders and outsiders. It deals with displacement through the use of otherness as a mechanism of protection, inclusion, exclusion, isolation and connection. It aims to provoke inquiry about how we receive, perceive and imagine physical otherness.

These objects, creatures and species have an aliveness in their deception delivering an uneasiness about them and their presence. The work aims to collapse the duality of the familiar and unfamiliar and the ordered and disordered.

Peter Tilley

- A Passage Through Time, 2011

30 August to 24 September

This body of work shifts between still life tableau and compositions based around the figure. It could be seen as a dialogue with the self while reflecting on issues of the times and the nature of society. A physical manifestation of the personal and the universal through the use of an unassuming figure grouped with everyday objects. There is a recurring meditation on life's opposing forces of hope/despair, real/wishful, life/death and permanence/decay etc. The form and context of these works will to a large extent be intuitively understood, being derived from concepts commonly encountered. However, at the same time the work can be rich in contradiction and complexity, implying an experience of the real world.

Todd Fuller

- Tense, 2011

2 to 27 August

Todd Fuller's work is drawn from his own personal narrative as an untraditional Australian male, however his figures engage with the everyday pitfalls that are relevant to us all. Fuller's tiny men are many things, but mostly they are just in need of a good hug. 'Tense' is a show which brings together the artist's ongoing investigation into the notions of masculinity and a showcase of the cast of misfit male characters who have resulted. His leading men are potbellied, schadenfreude worthy ceramic figures who are also the stars of Fuller's hand drawn animations.

Lust

- curated by Gordon Elliott, 2011

5 to 30 July

Desire. Longing. Craving. Lasciviousness.

Lust for flesh. Lust for power. Lust for money. Lust for life. Lust for food. Lust for freedom. Lust for art.

Lust is that powerful emotion hidden deep within your heart. It can propel you in many directions positive or negative. Are you willing to surrender to your cravings? Are you willing to bare your soul and achieve that secret longing?

Artists throughout the ages have embraced this emotion to produce extraordinary works. This exhibition takes raw passion into a contemporary context, highlighting our diverse lustful inclinations.

Fiona Fenech

- A Marvelous Transformation, 2011

7 June to 2 July

This series of drawings explores the transition from childhood to adolescence and the dualism of integrating fantasy and reality. The work draws from the narratives of Seventeenth Century French Contes de Fees (fairy tales) and children's games that have elements of magical transformation, fantasy, violence and the macabre.

The narrative in the drawings has an uncanny aspect of being familiar yet strange, incorporating the notion of child or adolescent morphing into an animal.

Embellished and stitched tapestry motifs punctuate the paper and the figure, with the combined purpose of being decorative and aggressive, suturing memory and inserting self.

Lyndal Hargrave

- Constructs of Love and Logic, 2011

7 June to 2 July

The linear and geometric forms of Lyndal Hargrave's wall-mounted sculptures are constructed with found elements, objects of the everyday. The familiarity of the material invites the viewer into the work to consider, investigate and to reinvestigate through repetition.

The structured lines hum with movement as the eye travels along the interwoven contours of the sculpture. A dichotomy is established through the contrast of the rigid form and the soft, emotive qualities of colour. The white of the sculpture's surface, coupled with the blank palette of the wall, provides a platform for the study of the reflected light and colour.

Al Munro

- Crystallography, 2011

10 May to 4 June

Crystallography is the field of science which studies the arrangement of atoms within a solid. Prior to the development of x-ray techniques in the early part of the 20th Century, this was primarily based upon the geometrical analysis of the symmetry of geological crystal's faces and axes.

My work takes as its starting point a number of crystallographic diagrams which function as descriptions of the natural world in terms of mathematical code, but which, like any code or language, can be spoken and written in unintended ways.

Melinda Le Guay

- Conflict, 2011

10 May to 4 June

My research and work has become increasingly concerned with nurturing, healing and protecting the fragile and vulnerable.

My work currently hinges on the physical and psychological susceptibility of the young female - when issues to do with identity sometimes culminate in self-harm, or body image disorders. A time when self-protection and retreat dominate thinking and negotiation in the world.

Still immersed in materiality, my work is not generated by conscious thought but is experiential and process driven. In my own vulnerability, I also need to withdraw into an internalised space to find stillness and order to keep hold of the thread.

Art + Humour Me

- a curated group exhibition, 2011

12 April to 7 May

This year we return with the third in the Art + Humour series following the inaugural show in 2005 and Art + Humour Too of 2007. The exhibition contains a range of artworks from sculptures and paintings to an installation of a cardigan-wearing tree.

Humour will elicit a response from all ages and cultures although the actions to induce it will vary from person to person. Historically, comedy has had an important place within the arts dating back to the dramatic form of Ancient Greece, but currently receives very little critical attention in the contemporary visual arts.

Carol Murphy

- The importance of being Ernest...no, Enid, 2011

15 March to 9 April

... early memories from the movie, the gladstone bag under a glass dome, a book in the pram, the baby in the bag, my first contact with surrealism? flowers at the cemetery under glass domes, my first garden, mud, the treadle sewing machine, the sweet smell of daphne, holding on to memories, old clothes, dress ups, love of music, old records, dancing, making and losing things. leaving, the misfit, humor, drawing, photography, living in studio spaces, 'je ne regrette rien', the collection of objects for the security they provide, (too many episodes of Steptoe and Son?) sculpture, the clutter of existence, my chickens, using tools, growing things - and living a life in earnest.

Joel Bliss

- Return of The Bigots, 2011

15 March to 9 April

My experience within the Australian punk subculture is explored through my recent sculpture. I am creating sculptures that relate to recordings made by my band, The Bigots, in the late 90s and early 2000s. These songs are fast, loud, raw and unpolished. For a long time they have inspired my sculptural aesthetic.

In 1999 I also documented my interest in rat-motorbikes with a collaborative one-off zine titled Rat Bike. This was produced with Tim Bigot (the other member of The Bigots). Reflecting upon imagery from the Rat Bike zine, I am recreating this punk attitude and aesthetic in my sculpture.

Along with sculptural works, I will be presenting CDs with select Bigots songs and will reprint the Rat Bike zine. As a performance piece related to my sculptural work, The Bigots will perform live at 6pm on the 19th of March.

Sybil Curtis

- Inside Outside, 2011

15 February to 12 March

I judge visual art first on abstract standards: mass, lights and darks, rhythms, tonality, technique, the use of detail to form a whole that is aesthetically and emotionally compelling. Shadows and reflections are so complicated that their real appearance may be abandoned and replaced by ones that enhance a composition.

The internal dark spaces of the industrial buildings on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour and agriculture structures illuminated by strong sunlight are the sources for this body of work.

Morgan Shimeld

- Converge, 2011

15 February to 12 March

I see my newest bronze sculptures as a series of abstract still life studies. They are strong and grounded monolithic shapes, using perspective and precisely angled planes. I have worked to take away and add segments, creating channels, tunnels and facets that have a quiet and still presence to them. These channels and facets act to draw the viewer into the work and often opposing sides will have quite a different sense of balance and perspective.

I then observe these objects and recreate them in wire, sometimes altering them or inverting some of the shapes during the process. This work challenges the viewer to see the solidity of the shape through its emptiness. If it is viewed from one angle the lines can appear to flatten causing the shape to collapse. However if you engage with the piece and walk around it, viewing it in motion, the surfaces of the planes begin to emerge. Differing from solid objects, which can only be seen one way, these illusory shapes can be seen in different ways in terms of their positive and negative spaces.